Mumbai: The Bandra Kurla Complex (BKC) police on Saturday arrested Kanpur cartoonist, Aseem Trivedi (25), for reportedly posting “ugly and obscene” content on his web portal and for putting up banners mocking the Indian Constitution during Anna Hazare’s anti-graft movement at the BKC ground in December last year.
Trivedi’s arrest has also stalled his trip to Syria to collect his Cartoonists Rights Network International (CRNI) award. “The CRNI announced the winners of the 2012 Courage in Editorial Cartooning Award. The winners are Ali Ferzat fromSyria and Aseem Trivedi from India. He was supposed to fly to Syria on September 12. His arrest has ruined his travel plans and his visa application was also rejected,” said Trivedi’s colleague Alok Dixit.
Dixit said that Trivedi decided to present himself before the BKC police after a team reached Kanpur on August 30, took his father to the Kanpur police station and repeatedly questioned him.
“On Friday night, we boarded a train from Delhi and reached Mumbai. On reaching, the BKC police they arrested him,” he said. He said that the officials told Trivedi was booked under IPC’s Section 124 (A) (whoever, by words, either spoken or written, or by signs, or by visible representation, or otherwise, brings or attempts to bring into hatred or contempt, or excites or attempts to excite
disaffection towards) and under the Information Technology Act 66 (A). He will be produced before the holiday court on Sunday.
Trivedi had told TOI in February, “The cartoons were in no way organized by the Hazare campaign.”
BACKGROUND 
 In Februray 2012,  The Bandra-Kurla Complex police has booked a Kanpur cartoonist, Aseem Trivedi (25), for reportedly posting “ugly and obscene” content on his web portal he owns and for putting up banners mocking the Indian Constitution during Anna Hazare’s anti-graft movement at the BKC ground in Decemberlast year.

The police registered the case recently after conducting a probe based on a complaint received from an RTI activist, who had appealed to the Bombay High Court to take action against those who tried to malign the Constitution.

DCP (operations) and Mumbai police spokespersonfor Mumbai police, Manohar Dalvi, confirmed a case had been registered against Trivedi. “Cartoons that caused the stir included an interpretation of the Indian national emblem, where four wolves stand in place of King Asoka’s Sarnath lions. Also, the message on the emblem reads Bhrashtamev Jayate (Long Live Corruption) instead of Satyamev Jayate.

The other controversial cartoons on the website included a bureaucrat appearing to assault a woman draped in a sari bearing the Indian tricolor, while a building, strikingly similar to the Indian Parliament, is labelled as the “National Toilet” in another cartoon,” Dalvi said.

Trivedi said, “The cartoons were in no way organized by the Hazare campaign.” Over the phone from Kanpur, Trivedi says his intention was not to mock the Indian Constitution but to “depict the ailing truth of the nation and send across a strong message to the masses”.

The BKC police have booked Trivedi under several sections of the IPC, including the State Emblem of India (Prohibition of Improper Use) Act, 2005 and under Section 66 of the IT Act.

 
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